Advice for losing beer belly and thunder thighs (25yo/M/5'7"/195lbs)

[thisisatest56]

Hello r/veganfitness!

This is my first post here and I'm hoping you lovely lot could offer me some advice. I have struggled with my weight my whole life, and I am tired of it. The most I ever weighed was 250lb about 5 years ago. I was working a job that came with a free gym membership so I was able to utilize that to start shedding some pounds off. However, the job also came with several opportunities to get my hands on weight loss supplements for no cost, and I am not proud to say I was using those pretty constantly for several months to speed my process up. I ended up getting down to 175lbs and plateaued. When I left that job, I worked at a sports bar for a good while and over the course of time gained back everything I had lost. I wasn't completely sedentary during this time - I actually developed a love for running (which would later spill over into biking). All in all, I haven't been doing my body the justice it deserves.

Present day: just made two years vegan, but I live in one of the less accommodating parts of the US, and combining that with terrible eating habits from my childhood and teen years has resulted in much too much junk food getting shoveled into my system. I absolutely love my plant based diet and cooking healthy meals at home - my work schedule the past year has not allowed for much of any of that unfortunately, much less exercise. But I started a new job a couple months ago and am finally starting to adjust to my 8-5 Mon-Fri schedule, so I'm ready once and for all to develop long lasting healthy habits.

I come to you all for any advice you could offer up. I know a big part of my problem is mindfulness and will power - I love running but it still sometimes takes a lot to convince myself to get out there and do it. I'm not worried about bulking up or putting on muscle at the moment as I have quite a bit of excess fat I would like to get rid of first.

I carry the majority of my fat in my stomach and thighs. I've noticed my shirts not fitting as well the past several weeks (and the holidays didn't really help anything) so I know I'm even more bloated than normal.

I'm looking for routine and diet advice for really focusing on those two areas of my body and getting my weight down before I worry about toning up too much. Willing to try anything!

Thanks to everyone in advance! And sorry

 

[christianfreedomprotector]

@thisisatest56 You say you're not interested in building muscle/bulking up but that's actually a pretty effective method of getting rid of fat, along with healthy eating. If you can get a support buddy, someone you work with or your SO to work out with you it will keep your motivation up and be more fun. Mixing weight lifting and cardio, like running, is a good way to lose fat quickly. If you have food addictions, just pick one thing like sweet tea and get unsweet tea instead. Don't taper the sugar, just switch and stick it out for a couple weeks and you'll notice your preference is changing. Don't try to eat healthy all at once, just make better choices (even if its just slightly better) one meal at a time -- baby steps are easier to sustain. Good luck!

 

[thisisatest56]

@christianfreedomprotector You're right on the money about an accountability buddy. My girlfriend and I are going to be helping each other make healthier choices more often.

 

[jchin]

@thisisatest56 As formula350 mentioned, you shouldn't go at it all at once, but take small steps. Toning is basically just another term for losing body fat. Your first goal should be getting your diet in order. Resistance training and/or cardio won't really help if you're eating poorly since at the end of the day you need to be in caloric deficit to lose body fat.

You say you had terrible eating habits - depending on what those stem from, it might be a good idea to seek some guidance from a therapist (you can try a site like betterhelp if seeing someone in person doesn't work with your schedule). If the issue is just mindfulness, I would suggest getting notebook, and logging what you eat and then slowly making healthier adjustments. Keeping a food journal will make you accountable for what you're eating as well as increase your awareness of where any calories are coming from. You may even want to consider joining a forum where you can share the notes for additional accountability. You may also want to think about getting a pressure cooker and food chopper - I personally have found that having these two items has made making food a lot faster and a bit more hands off.

Once you have started taking steps towards correcting your diet, you should look into doing resistance training to accelerate the process - the more muscle you have, the higher your basal metabolic rate, and the more calories your body burns.

 

[thisisatest56]

@jchin Food journal is a great idea I had not really considered before! And therapy is not out of the question - I've never heard of betterhelp before so I'll look into that tonight. The cooker and chopper are definitely on my appliance wish list.

 

[jchin]

@thisisatest56 You can set up some alerts on slickdeals for a food processor (I got a cuisinart) and pressure cooker (got 7-1 Instant Pot). I got both on pretty good sales.

 

[dawn16]

@thisisatest56 Something I find that helps when you are too busy to cool during the week is to do batch cooking. Cook a few good meals/sides on the weekend that you can combine to make easy meals during the week. This way you can reach for easy food to reheat into healthy dinners and lunches during the week.

 

[thisisatest56]

@dawn16 Good call, something I know I've been needing to do and just haven't. Thanks!

 

[tankboi]

@thisisatest56 You can't spot reduce fat; not really. You can just lower overall body fat, so rather than focusing on things that target those areas, try to just do very taxing workouts that burn a lot of calories.

Don't think of building muscle and losing fat as two different things. They're on the same spectrum and can be complimentary to each other. Raising muscle mass will raise your caloric needs and lower your body fat %.

I'd say if relatively fasted cardio, intense squats, and dip/chin supersets don't do it, nothing will.

Try hitting 20 reps on the squat (any weight that's hard), and then superset a push movement with a pull movement to failure. So maybe, if you cant do dips or chins, do a set of close grip bench presses to failure (aim for around 10 but do as many as you can), then immediately do a set of pulldowns (go for 10+ again), rest 30 seconds - 1 minute, then go at it again. If you keep doing loads of reps, keep putting your weight up until you struggle to do 10 again. Nice and simple but ridiculously brutal if you put everything into it.

Do that twice a week, go for a fast run on a relatively empty stomach, and the pounds will fly off you mate.

 

[thisisatest56]

@tankboi Thanks for helping me remember that building muscle and losing fat are complimentary - I was typing the OP on mobile and just wanted to get the discussion going and was trying to not be too lengthy, but I definitely forgot about that bit! Thanks for the exercise info too. I had a nice run tonight and need to switch it up throughout the rest of the week so I'll be trying these!

 

[tankboi]

@thisisatest56 Glad I was of some use to you. Sorry for telling you things you already know. It's difficult to avoid being patronising on these things because you have no idea how much people already know about stuff.

Awesome mate, just keep going and you'll get there. Ease yourself into it by all means, high rep squats can be absolutely brutal, but if you build the weight up gradually and consistently you'll find that pretty soon you're handling some decent weight and building some honest muscle.

Would love to hear how you're getting on in a few months and what you've been doing. Bets of luck.

 

[hobotone]

@thisisatest56 I would track your macros to make sure you are receiving exactly what your body needs for your workouts and have weekly training plans. A great app for tracking your meals and macros is myfitnesspal. There are many macro calculators online. My gym routines are broken up my muscle groups and I do cardio 2-3 times a week in conjunction with resistance training.

 

[danialgarso1]

@thisisatest56 there seems to be a lot of great advice on here already. I'll chime in that you should join Strava, it's an app for cyclists and runners. There are a lot of vegans groups on their, it's super motivating to have support. The app itself also lets you chart your progress over time. Best of luck!!!!

 

[thisisatest56]

@danialgarso1 I have the app on my phone for biking but I use Nike+ for my runs. Didn't think about looking into fellow vegan cyclists on there! Thanks a bunch!

 

[danialgarso1]

@thisisatest56 I'm injured right now but I'm super active during the season, here's my Strava if you want to be friends!